The Philosophy Book

298

KNOWLEDGE

IS PRODUCED

TO BE SOLD

JEAN-FRANCOIS LYOTARD (1924–1998)

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Epistemology

APPROACH

Postmodernism

BEFORE

1870s The term “postmodern”

is first used in the context of

art criticism.

1939–45 Technological

advances in World War II lay

the ground for the computer

revolution of the 20th century.

1953 Ludwig Wittgenstein

writes in his Philosophical

Investigations about “language

games”—an idea that Lyotard

uses to develop his idea of

meta-narratives.

AFTER

1984 American literary critic

Fredric Jameson writes

Postmodernism, or the Cultural

Logic of Late Capitalism.

From 1990s The World Wide

Web offers unprecedented

access to information.

T

he idea that knowledge

is produced to be sold

appears in Jean-François

Lyotard’s book The Postmodern

Condition: A Report on Knowledge.

The book was originally written

for the Council of Universities in

Quebec, Canada, and the use of

the term “postmodern” in its title

is significant. Although Lyotard

did not invent the term, which had

been used by various art critics

since the 1870s, his book was

responsible for broadening its range

and increasing its popularity. His

use of the word in the title of this

book is often said to mark the

beginning of postmodern thought.

The term “postmodernism”

has since been used in so many

different ways that it is now hard

to know exactly what it means,

Knowledge is

produced to be sold.

Computer technology has

changed knowledge into

information that is...

...stored in vast

databases.

This information is judged

by its commercial value,

not by its truth.

...owned by large

corporations.